Three Notes on Old English Texts

Three Notes on Old English TextsAuthor(s): Elizabeth SuddabySource: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 69, No. 7 (Nov., 1954), pp. 465-468Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3039607 .

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Modern Language Notes

Volume LXIX NOVEMBER, 1954 Number 7

THREE NOTES ON OLD ENGLISH TEXTS

I. The Wanderer, line 65 ff. Wita sceal geJ)yldig,

ne sceal no to hatheort ne to hresdwyrde, ne to wac wiga ne to wanhydig, ne to forht ne to faegen, ne to feohgifre ne noefre gielpes to georn, oer he geare cunne.

A wise man must be patient; he must not be too passionate, or too hasty of speech, or too feeble a fighter, or too rash, or too timid, or too glad, or too greedy for wealth, or too ready to boast before he sees his way clearly.

In this enumeration of all that a wise man ought to be, the phrase 'to fegen ' seems at first sight out of place. The main point is obviously that extremes of all kinds are to be avoided, and most of those enumerated suggest a familiar background of battle, love of treasure, and the uttering of vows. The warning against excess of gladness is not so obviously relevant. It occurs again, however, in a late Old English homily, in a passage very similar to these lines from The Wanderer, and presumably based on a similar tradition of gnomic wisdom; and there the reason for its inclusion is perfectly clear. The passage is at the end of Wulfstan's Sermo De Baptismate: '

ne beon ge ofermode ne to weamocle ne to ni5fulle ne to flitgeorne ne to felawyrde ne ealles to hlagole ne eft to asolcene ne to unrote. ne beon ge to rance ne to gylpgeorne ne freringa to faegene ne eft to ormode.

Do not be arrogant or too ill-humoured or too envious or too quarrelsome, or too talkative, or altogether too much inclined to laugh and then afterwards too sluggish and dejected. Do not be too proud or too ready to boast, or too cheerful suddenly and then afterwards too despondent.

1 Wulfstan, Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst Unter- suchungen iuber ihre Echtheit, ed. A. Napier, Berlin 1883, No. V, p. 40.

465



466 MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES, NOVEMBER, 1954

Here, twice over, the warning is plainly given against the unstable temperament that drops too easily from hilarity into depression. And it is possible that line 68 of The Wanderer contains a blurred reflection of the same idea.

II. The Battle of Maldon, lines 189-190. he gehleop tone eoh Je ahte his hlaford, on ,am geraedum Je hit riht ne waes.

The syntax of 190b is uncertain, but the half-line is usually taken to be a relative clause. If this is so, either Pe hit is the compound relative, and the phrase means 'which was not right '-a comment on Godric's conduct in general; or else Pe alone is the relative, and hit is the impersonal subject of the verb, and the phrase needs to be expanded in translation-' on those trappings which it was not right (to mount on) '.2 Such a use of the relative, however, seems awkward; and I suggest that it would be more satisfactory to adopt the emendation proposed, as a possibility, by Dr. C. T. Onions, in his note on this line in Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader,-" Pe hit, 'which' (?) or perhaps emend Pe to peh 'though . The two lines could then be translated-' He leapt up onto the horse which his lord had owned, onto the trappings, although it was not right.'

It is true that the only time the word is used elsewhere in the poem (as an adverb, in line 289) it is spelt Peah; but neh for neath, in line 103, and genehe for geneahhe in line 269, would seem to indicate that Peh is a perfectly possible form for this poem. What chiefly supports the emendation is the concurrence of almost exactly the same half-line in two other Old English poems. It appears in the poem Genesis A,4 in Eve's confession of how she yielded to the temptations of the serpent:

and pa reafode, swa hit riht ne was, beam on bearwe and pa blaeda set.

and then, although it was not right, despoiled the tree in the wood, and ate the fruit.

It appears also on folio 84a of the Exeter Book,5 in a passage 2 The Battle of Maldon, ed. E. V. Gordon. See also An Anglo-Saxon

Reader, ed. A. J. Wyatt, p. 281; and English and Norse Documents Relating to the Reign of Ethelred the Unready, ed. M. Ashdown.

3 An Anglo-Saxon Reader, ed. H. Sweet, 12th edition, 1950, p. 216. 4 The Junius Manuscript, ed. G. P. Krapp, p. 30, line 901. 5 The Exeter Book, ed. G. P. Krapp and E. V. K. Dobbie, p. 148, line 61 ff.



THREE NOTES ON OLD ENGLISH TEXTS 467

describing how the rebellious angels planned to seize the throne of God:

..a hi to swice J,oohton ond Jrymcyning Jeodenstoles ricne beryfan, swac hit ryht ne wces.

. . .when they purposed treacherously to deprive the great king of glory of his royal throne, although it was not right.

The use of swa in the sense of although is not uncommon in Old English,6 and this certainly seems to be the meaning here. If the emendation of Pe to Peh is accepted, the half-line 'swa hit riht ne waes' and line 190b of The Battle of MIaldon would be identical in meaning, and in construction, the only difference being that in The Battle of Maldon the clause is introduced by the usual Old English word for the conjunction 'although,' and in the other two poems by its less frequent alternative.

Another parallel example, in which a very similar clause is, in fact, introduced by the conjunction peh, peah, occurs in the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle annal for 1036: 7

for5an hit hleo5rode ]pa swi5e toward Haraldes, Ieh hit unriht were.

for the general voice was very much in favour of Harold, although it was unjust.

In itself the emendation presents no difficulty, for since the fol- lowing word begins with h, the assumed omission of the final letter of Peh would be a simple example of haplography. The occurrence of Pe seven words earlier may also have had some influence on the miswriting of the word.

III. The Alfrediacn version of Bede's,Ecclesiastical History, Book IV, Chap. xxi-v. (H. Sweet, An Anglo-Saxon Reader, No. x, Bede's Account of the Poet Caedmon, line 74)

And he eall pa he in gehernesse geleornian mihte, mid hine gemyngade, and swa swa claene neten eodorcende in ta-t sweteste leo] gehwyrfde.

And all those things which he could learn through listening, he turned over in his mind, like a clean beast chewing the cud, and converted into the sweetest poetry.

6 See C. W. M. Grein and J. J. K8hler, Sprachschatz der angelsachsischen Dichter. Swa, 10.

7 C (Abingdon) version. Two of the Saxon Chronzicles paraltel, ed. Earle and Plummer, Vol. I, p. 158.



468 MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES, NOVEMBER, 1954

This comparison of Caedmon with a clean beast chewing the cud (which is a literal translation of the Latin original) derives from Leviticus xi. 3, and the traditional allegorical interpretation of the text. A very clear statement in Oldc English literature of such an interpretation occurs in Aelfric's Lives of the Saints, No. xxv- Passio Sanctorum Machabeorum.8 Aelfric has, in the course of his narrative, occasion to mention foods considered unclean by the Jews, and there follows a short digression on animals clean and unclean according to the Mosaic law, together with their allegorical significance, and including these lines:

pa cleenan nytenu Je heora cudu ceowa5 getacnia5 pa men Je on heora mode smeaga5 embe godes willan sy55an hi his word gehyra5 of lareowa mu5um swylce hi heora mete ceowan

The clean beasts that chew the cud betoken those men, who, just as if they were chewing their food, meditate in their hearts upon the will of God after they have heard his Word from the mouths of teachers.

The connection between these lines and the passage in the Eccle- siastical History may well be only an indirect one. But Caedmon, pondering the religious instruction given him by the scholars of ilild's monastery, before turning it into verse, is in fact an admirable illustration of the clean beast, as explained by Aelfric.

ELIZABETH SUDDABY University College of the Souith West, EJxJeter

TROILIUS' CONFESSION

In Troilus and Criseyde, ii, lines 506-574, Pandarus told Criseyde how he had learned of Troilus' love for her. He and Troilus, said Pandarus, had been amusing themselves with a little physical exercise, until Troilus excused himself because of weariness:

Soon after that bigonne we to lepe, And casten with oure dartes to and fro, Tyl at the laste he seyde he wolde slepe, And on the gres adoun he leyde hym tho; And I afer gan rome to and fro, Til that I herde, as that I welk alone, How he began ful wofully to grone. (II, 512-518)

81Ed, W. W. Skeat, E. E.T.S. 94, p. 68, line 38ff.

